Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
Start Commander Deck

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

Legendary Creature — Human Cleric

First strike, haste

Unleash (You may have this creature enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it. It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.)

Each other creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it has haste.

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Gore-House Chainwalker

legendofa on

9 months ago

Welcome to the club, Kershin36!

I'm not a Commander expert, but there's a couple of cards here I'd like to poke at.

You don't have a lot of self-damaging effects to take advantage of Rowan, Scion of War--in fact, I only really see Blood Crypt and Bloodgift Demon that would reliably hit you. There are plenty of "damage target player" effects, but I assume you would want to use those on your opponents. There's also not really enough instants to use her ability on opponents' turns, either. I would cut her, or at least add more self-damage effects. Depending on budget and focus, Sulfuric Vortex, Phyrexian Arena, or Black Market Connections are all very good options, and Raphael, Fiendish Savior lets you recover the life loss easily enough.

Everlasting Torment is a very good card, but here it directly clashes with Raphael. I would simply cut it, unless you don't mind losing the lifelink or are willing to use a different commander.

There's no way to spread +1/+1 counters for Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, and less than five creatures that use them at all. A 4/4 hasty first striker is pretty good as an attacker, but you're usually going to want more utility than that.

Here, I'm going to get into my personal tastes, so if these suggestions aren't what you're looking for with this deck, feel free to skip over them. I would add more sacrifice effects to control when your creatures die and help ensure you gain some advantage from it. Mayhem Devil will thank you. I would also add more mass removal and destroy effects. A lot of your removal options are single target and based on damage or toughness reduction, which isn't bad in moderation but won't help much against a token deck going off or a creature with double digit power/toughness, both of which happen pretty regularly. I'm a fan of discard, but choose your targets well.

And above all, have fun!

ndame24 on Counter Deck

2 years ago

Rebullet I'm more than willing to cut Scavenging Ooze and reduce the number of other cards to make room for more lands. That is why I added Sylvan Caryatid though so I could offset the number of lands I was running while also allowing for slight mana ramp.

My thoughts on non-creature cards is to be prepared for anything but mainly focus on removal since the main engine of the deck which is Kalonian Hydra and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch is a bit slower. So keeping the opponent in check while I build up my strategy was my thinking there. So you suggest only running 4 copies of Assassin's Trophy for removal? Or run that and maybe a couple Thoughtseize as well to aid in removal?

For the other non-creature cards, my thinking on cards like Inspiring Call and Colossal Majesty is so that I can manipulate my own deck and draw the cards I want quicker. I was finding that I was ending up with no cards in my hand more often than I wanted. I do agree that adding more counters, since that is the focus of the deck, would be more beneficial than some of the others that I have.

As far as Domri, Chaos Bringer goes, I was primarily focused on using his first ability which gives slight mana ramp and allows a creature to either have haste or gain a +1/+1 counter. And then his second ability was to manipulate my deck so I could get the creatures I want sooner. After using him though, I did find that he was more beneficial in late game so it did slow the deck down a little. I'm thinking about cutting down Domri, Chaos Bringer and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch down to 2 each.

I do like the idea of adding Managorger Hydra though. That is the first time I have ever seen that card.

I like some of the additions you made to the deck you created as well. Going to consider mixing in some with what I currently have.

Rebullet on Counter Deck

2 years ago

yea Fabled Passage is fantastic. now looking at your lands it is much better, you are hard pressed to have a dead land in the beginning as long as you draw more than 1 in the opening hand. though you are running 5 cost creatures and you average mana cost is relatively high i would not go below 23 lands as a rule unless my avg mana cost was below 2.0. your avg mana cost is currently 2.64. there are some things that you can finagle to make lower lands work like cost reducers and mana ramp, but your deck really needs lands and neither of those options fix the issue so i would say cut some things.

second thing. other than lands your non creature cards are unfocused and detrimental. you have too many situational cards that can be dead cards in many matchups. when putting in cards to deal with matchups you want to put things that deal with many things effectively in the mainboard and efficient things that deal with specific decks in the sideboard. you also want to avoid putting too much instant interaction into a creature based deck. doing so can split your focus, sometimes you will have too many instants and no creatures making it so you can only play defensive. you should focus your mainboard to your strategy only and have only a few cards to deal with threats. 4 assassins trophies is more than enough. usually in games getting a single permanent removed is the difference between a win and a loss. you want to focus on putting as many threats onto the board as possible instead of worrying what your opponent has out. in this sense Cremate, Thoughtseize, Gaea's Blessing are purely detrimental to you in the mainboard. cards like Oblivion's Hunger and Inspiring Call do nothing to advance your board state and rely on you having a sufficient board state to function correctly. if you have no creatures out then they are dead cards. Abrupt Decay is really good but you want to cut down on things that do not progress your own board state, same thing with Riveteers Charm. Assassin's Trophy is the most efficient and versatile removal you have access to so you should focus that card and leave the others out.

now on to domri. you only ever want up to 2 legendary anything unless they are your main strategy for the deck or if they have value from being replaced. domri is neither. he is there for utility. this logic also applies for large costed creatures. if you have big mana cost things then you will likely draw more if you have more, making them dead draws until you have the ability to cast them. Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and Kalonian Hydra are much to costly for an aggro deck to have 4 of them. you should cut them down to 1 or 2 so that your early game doesnt suffer.

now that i look at this closer you have nothing that "produces counters" for your creatures. all your creatures produce a set and then continue, the only one who really produces counters is Kalonian Hydra and that is very inefficent. your board without a kalonian hydra cannot grow beyond their own scope. you should look into putting in some counter producers like Hangarback Walker, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, The Ozolith (kinda counts), Dreadhorde Butcher etc. things that have a way to continuously get counters without limiting it like with evolve.

ndame24 on Counter Deck

2 years ago

Rebullet I have been trying to find something like cockatrice so thank you for that. I get what you’re saying about control decks. Makes complete sense. I just don’t want to stray too far from the original plan of the deck by building up massive creatures with +1/+1 counters using Kalonian Hydra and just being too powerful. Then again, if Kalonian Hydra and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch enter early, those two cards alone would allow for massive damage early on.

420MensRightsActivist same thing I said above. I completely get what you’re saying and will definitely consider making those changes. I just don’t want to get too far away from the main focus of the deck which is to have massive creatures on the board using Kalonian Hydra’s ability. So I would be good with removing cards like Gore-House Chainwalker and Ghor-Clan Rampager but I don’t think removing Experiment One or Rakdos Cackler is a good idea cause it takes away from the main idea of the deck. But, if removing those cards makes the deck competitive in tournaments/free-to-play nights at my local store then I am strongly considering them. What cards would you suggest removing and replacing? Like what would you do to replace the lands, Corpsejack Menace and Champion of Lambholt?

Metroid_Hybrid on Need help rebuilding an old …

2 years ago

Several years ago I put together a strictly Rakdos-themed Aggro deck built around Fists of the Demigod, Psychotic Fury, Ashenmoor Liege, and having a "transformative" sideboard. Many users on T/O at the time seemed to like it as much as I did. But unfortunately, one day I accidentally left it at an LGS shortly before it permanently closed, and was never able to get it back...

Now half a decade later, I'm looking to rebuild. However, over the past 5 years many new creatures have been printed that have rendered my old list, quite frankly, obsolete..

I'm probably going to keep all of the non-creature spells (except maybe Madcap Skills), but I'm likely to replace all of the creatures except the playsets of Rakdos Cackler & Spike Jester, and the singles of Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and (of course) Ashenmoor Liege.

With so many new options, compounded by the fact that I haven't played any Modern in years, I find it difficult to settle on a particular direction...

Please advise...


Rakdos Sligh Beats - RakdosDeckWins..

Modern Metroid_Hybrid

SCORE: 81 | 52 COMMENTS | 15929 VIEWS | IN 57 FOLDERS


(As far as the sideboard is concerned, I'm probably going to replace Blightning with Sovereign's Bite)

Quicksilver on Rare commander build?

2 years ago

I've never seen anyone else use Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch as a primary commander which is a shame because her ability is great with tribute cards.

tiffanyann on tiffanyann

3 years ago

Ender666666 I've got Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch Unleash Theme. Sethron, Hurloon General Minotaur Tribal. Blim, Comedic Genius EvilZedruu/Rohgahh Gifts.

All need a write up before being posted. Stay tuned!

TheVectornaut on Hot Women Card Collection

3 years ago

I actually made an entire deck around this concept that works surprisingly well. Steve Argyle is a particularly great resource for this topic. In addition to Liliana of the Veil and Chosen of Markov  Flip, he's also done Deadly Allure , Guul Draz Vampire , Naya Battlemage , and Night Revelers . Other notable artists are Jason Chan ( Deathpact Angel , Fires of Undeath , Kiora, Master of the Depths , Mayael the Anima , Maul Splicer , Treasured Find ) and Volkan Baga ( Elspeth, Knight-Errant , Korozda Gorgon , Stoic Angel , Student of Warfare ). I ended up going with vampires + knights and some other cards I included are Hero of Bladehold , Knight Exemplar , Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts , Elenda, the Dusk Rose , and possibly the most ridiculous piece of Magic art ever created: Soul Collector . Some cards that came close to making the cut are Angel of Despair , Bloodflow Connoisseur , Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief , Knight of Dusk , Magister of Worth , Avacyn, Angel of Hope , Vampire Hexmage , and Veteran Cavalier .

Other cards that I like (sorted by type) include Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch , Lyzolda, the Blood Witch , Kemba, Kha Regent , Sunspear Shikari , Elvish Champion , Gaea's Herald , Quirion Dryad , Nimbus Naiad , Dreamborn Muse , Mistral Singer , Shipwreck Singer , Siren of the Fanged Coast , Akroma, Angel of Wrath , Archangel of Strife , Basandra, Battle Seraph , Razia, Boros Archangel , and Ire Shaman . Looking at this list now, it's clear I've spent far too much time researching this subject.

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